Royal Bermuda Yacht Club Cocktail
It’s been hot! I mean, surface of the sun hot. I live 10 blocks from the beach and it’s been oscillating between 80 and 90 degrees depending on the time of day. But if you look up above, it looks like rain… which sort of fits. Any time I’ve been somewhere tropical, somewhere the temperatures get up to the 90’s, the heat will be intense but thunderstorms are frequent. So, you can understand why Los Angeles has been feeling more like Hawaii and the Caribbean the past few days. While the heat and thunderstorms can be a bit much to bare, their locales often put me in the mood for tropical cocktails. Cocktails that require a lot of rum and plenty of citrus. Cocktails like the classic Royal Bermuda Yacht Club.
Now, I know this may sound like a fancy club where men dressed in linen suits and women in floral gowns sip champagne and while away the hours playing bridge, but in reality it’s a cocktail. Actually it’s both. See, the cocktail was actually named after a highbrow club in, you guessed it, Bermuda. Established on November 1, 1844 by a party of 30 gentlemen, the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club originally consisted of British Army officers and local Bermudian Sailors. According to the Yacht Club’s website, it was “during a picnic, under a calabash tree in Tom Moore’s Jungle,” that these 30 gentlemen decided they needed an institution dedicated to sailing and Bermuda’s way of life; and the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club was born. Since its inception, the club has had 62 commodores, has sent more than 20 sailors to the Olympics and, most importantly, has had a cocktail named after it.
The cocktail was created by the famous tiki maestro, Victor Jules Bergeron, Jr., or Trader Vic. He decided to take the classic Daiquiri and modify it by adding a few more tropical flavors. While there’s still rum, simple syrup and lime juice in it, Vic chose to add just two more ingredients: Orange Curaçao for a hint of citric bitterness and Falernum for a little spice. These two additions not only create a totally new cocktail, they add a tropical quality that allude to Bermuda ports, sandy beaches before a storm and plenty of fancy regattas. It’s the perfect cocktail to cool you off this weekend and all through those dog days of summer.
Ingredients
- 2 ounces aged rum
- 1/2 ounce Falernum
- 1/4 ounce orange curacao
- 3/4 ounce lime juice
- 1/2 ounce simple syrup
Instructions
- Pour all ingredients into a cocktail shaker. Add ice and shake vigorously until chilled.
- Strain into a chilled cocktail glass, garnish with a wedge of lime and serve.
